Mats Persson is Director of Open Europe, a think-tank with offices in London and Brussels, and an advisory board member of Open Europe Berlin.

Can the Tories lead this motley crew of Eurosceptics?

In an attempt to create a legislature that follows some sort of normal democratic logic, the European Parliament has sought to craft transnational political families – or groups. However, since democracy requires a demos, the result is a series of generally odd, incoherent constellations that make sense to few outside Brussels. For example, the pro free-movement Swedish Moderaterna sits with France’s centre-Right UMP party’s Rachida Dati who has called for a “Europe of borders” and Forza Italia, whose party leader has probably broken every other law on your typical Scandinavian statute book. For its part, Britain’s Labour Party sits with various colourful parties ranging from ex-communists to a radical Swedish feminist. Somehow, the result from this hotchpotch is a Parliament that tends to vote for “more Europe”.

I don’t blame the Tories for trying to break with this practice. Whatever the other consequences from the decision, forming the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in 2009 was at least intellectually honest. On policy, cementing a strong and coherent unit for more free trade and less EU interference in the European Parliament, whose approval is needed for signing trade deals and scrapping regulation, makes perfect sense. The problem is, the ECR risks becoming something quite different.

Following the European elections, the ECR has voted to accept a series of new controversial parties including Germany’s anti-euro party Alternative für Deutschland (though most Tory MEPs voted against this), the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party. David Cameron and many Tory MPs were against these parties joining but don’t have a veto.

The AfD is good for German democracy and it features some sensible people (and some less so). However, if the wider objective is sweeping reform, it’s not a great idea to cheese off the one person whose agreement is absolutely essential for achieving sweeping EU reform: Angela Merkel. Remember, AfD was set up at least in part to explicitly campaign against Merkel, who refuses to deal with them.

Merkel is a pragmatist and might get over it. And yes, say some Conservatives, Merkel may not be pleased but can we really call her CDU/CSU, which backs Jean-Claude Juncker for European Commission President and features someone like Elmar Brok, a “sister party”? That’s the purist view. But if we want to be purist, are the ECR parties really the European reincarnation of happily free-trading, small government British Tories?

The Danish People's Party and Finns Party are Social Democrats in nationalist wrapping. In addition to their very robust stance on immigration, they're in favour of the large Nordic welfare state and are, at best, lukewarm towards free trade. Are they going to vote for a liberalised EU services market – a key Tory objective which could boost EU GDP by 2.3 per cent – and take on the Nordic trade unions (a big part of their power base)?

The same goes for trade deals with the rest of the world. The AfD recently came out against the pending EU-US free trade deal (TTIP) “calling it unfair and to [Germany’s] disadvantage”, reflecting the internal battle within the party between economic liberals and populists who see protectionism as an easy vote winner.

Polish Law & Justice, an older ECR member, is virulently opposed to GMOs, and have called for greater “protection” for agriculture in general. By a quick count, in the new look ECR, around two-thirds of its 63 MEPs either oppose TTIP outright or qualify their support based on the removal of key liberalising measures, such as agriculture or the investor-state dispute resolution mechanism. In other words, Cameron may now stuck with a semi-protectionist group in the EP where a majority opposes one of his key priorities for EU reform.

The positive spin is that if the Tories can lead this motley crew of disparate parties to support open markets and less regulation, the group could decisively swing narrow votes on free trade issues. Then, the trade-off might be worth it.

At the very least, with the Independent Greeks, who have called for Germany to pay war reparations, and the AfD, who want Greece to be kicked out of the euro, ECR MEPs can look forward to some really interesting group meetings in the future …